


Break Up to Make Up

by LezBlowShitUp



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: ...that gets unestablished a lot, Angst and Humor, Boys Kissing, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Hinata lives off Kags' praise, Kageyama the heart thief, Kags has magic hands, Love Confessions, M/M, On-Again/Off-Again Relationship, POV Hinata Shouyou, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Time Skip, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Kageyama Tobio, The lovely Yachi, They have a world to conquer together, Volleyball Dorks in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LezBlowShitUp/pseuds/LezBlowShitUp
Summary: In the time that Shouyou’s dated and un-dated his emotional ice cube setter—Kageyama Tobio has been a "last bruised peach in the back of the fridge, bottom of the KFC bucket, it’d be better to slip and die on a banana peel than go out with him" kinda boyfriend.So it shouldn’t be so hard to say no when Shouyou gets home from Brazil after two years away, and Tobio wants to get back together one last time.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 12
Kudos: 288





	Break Up to Make Up

**Author's Note:**

> My concept for this break up/make up fic was inspired by one of Jaaquiie’s ideas in their new Haikyuu Headcanons pt 4!! on Tumblr. I used their 'kagehina break up a lot' idea as a jumping-off point and diverted from all the follow-up ideas. So everything else in this fic is my own.
> 
> *edited on 09/02/2020 
> 
> (Hinata's POV)

The day of our Nekoma practice match, the sky is fuming with clouds, threatening to blow, which is perfect cause so am I. 

Yachi practically jumps when I plop down next to her on the bus. I refuse to sit next to Tobio for the ride into Tokyo. 

If only Kenma hadn’t graduated. Now that I’m a third year, he won’t even be there for me to talk to after the game.

"I take it you guys are off again?" Yachi asks, scratching her cheek anxiously.

I cross my arms and huff. "Yup."

“Don’t you think it’s, uh, isn’t it sorta unhealthy?”

“That’s why I broke up with him!” My throat is still sore from shouting. Not that it did me any good. I can yell as loud as I want, and Tobio won’t hear me.

Yachi shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “But aren’t you just going to get back together tomorrow?”

“You’re wasting your breath,” Tsukishima says as he takes the seat across the aisle with that smug, know-it-all smirk of his.

Yachi's not wasting her breath, though. She's right— _painfully_ right. We do break up a lot.

For the record, Kageyama Tobio has been a ‘last bruised peach in the back of the fridge, bottom of the KFC bucket, it’d be better to slip and die on a banana peel than go out with him’ kinda boyfriend.

In the year and a half we’ve dated and un-dated—after I finally got up the courage to ignore his stony face—he’s never once remembered my birthday. Okay, actually, that's a lie. He bought me a pack of vitamin milk in our second year. _Thanks._ And no, he didn't notice me rolling my eyes. 

That's the problem. Tobio always notices when my jumps are too low, when I haven't spent enough time warming up, and when I'm overheating cause I've worked myself a bit too hard. He can figure all that out and not notice any which way I feel when I say we should break up. Like, somehow, he just thinks it’s no big deal, nothing to get worked up over. He doesn’t even blink—seriously.

So we do break up.

Except, he’ll go and do something like when he waited till we were the last ones left in the club room after Saturday practice and backed me into the cubbies to say, "Your broad jump has really improved." And the tips of my ears tingled, and the only thing I could think about was how good he smelled and how low his voice got when he talked so quietly—just for me to hear. Before I knew it, I was pressing my mouth to his, and we we're back together.

From there, it’s a waiting game till something will go wrong. 

One time, I found out he had an older sister. (He never mentioned her! Who does that?) It took me stealing his phone while he was in the bathroom so I could change his contacts to dorky names to spot her texts. For half a second, I was sitting at the foot of his bed, thinking he was cheating on me, until I realized, he could never get an older woman who was as pretty as the one in her contact photo. (Whatever the opposite of sophisticated is, that’s Tobio.) Also, the woman looked freakishly like him, just with long hair… That’s when it started to sink in—my boyfriend was obviously a complete ice cube. 

I used to think he was cold cause he was an only child. But all along he had a big sister—he had no excuse. So, of course, I did the sane, fully-melted, non ice cube thing—and dumped him.

It’s not my fault his tosses feel like magic, and the sound of his heart racing against my cheek after a match that time he grabbed me into a vicious-yama hug steamed me hot all over. 

It's absolutely, one hundred percent, not my fault if he got me to say I’d go out with him again when I was all fired up and so dizzy with winning that all my thoughts turned to fizz. His mouth felt so good on my neck, and the thing he did when he pulled on the hairs by my ears was too distracting to hold my ground.

Basically, my boyfriend is a crook—ehem, ex-boyfriend as of fifteen minutes ago—sitting on his hands whenever I want him to do some actual work with feelings and waiting to steal me when I'm an easy lift.

*

Before I have to leave Karasuno’s gym for good, I ask Tobio to toss me one more ball.

Somehow, even with all the _off_ s and _on_ s, and his complete failure to care about my feelings, when I tell him I’m leaving for Brazil, and his expression goes soft, and his eyes fix on me from across the net, I still expect him to say more than, “See you later.”

He's said tons of stuff to me about my volleyball technique. He’s said that he likes the color of my hair, the smell. Last year when we lost to Inarizaki at Spring Interhigh one match from making the quarterfinals, I wrestled Tobio away from the team and into an equipment room. I was shaking all over, oozing tears and snot. He wasn’t any better. So we did what we always do—I shoved him down onto a mess of folded mats, and he grabbed me by the back of my neck and pulled me with him. Scraping together, Tobio’s face wet in my hands, mine in his, he said how good I felt, and how much he wanted me. But he's never said he loves me.

‘See you later’ isn’t exactly a bad reaction to me going away. Volleyball is our thing, so—no matter what—I _have_ to play with him more. I kinda like that us meeting again is obvious for him that he’s not even worried. Only, I’m going away for _two_ years... Which means this time, I guess, we’ve broken up for good.

*

The night of my first V-League match, I’m out celebrating with the Black Jackals, finally back in Japan. It’s dark in here, and I’m throwing back another shot of tequila cause Tobio’s eyes have followed me all night from a booth across the bar, rapping at my senses like the _thump thump thump_ of the speaker right over my head. (With only a couple of joints by the Sendai arena, we were unlucky enough to wander into the same place as the Adlers.)

Even Sakusa’s put off by all Tobio’s staring. Well, Sakusa’s put off by everything. He’s hunching over his drink, shooting a moody scowl at Tobio. “Is this because you two were together in high school?”

“We were never serious,” I slur. To be fair, six shots of tequila would make a slurer outta anyone.

“Does _he_ know that?” Sakusa asks, lazing his chin on the back of his hand.

I shake my head. “He's got to. It's all his fault, always creeping in like a crook.” I down the shot in my hand in one go. “He waits till I'm all excited to–”

“Excuse _you._ ” Sakusa’s slaps his hand to the bar-top, cutting me off, and suddenly, Atsumu is dropping in, curling an arm around his shoulders, which I think Sakusa would like him to please remove.

“Is Chibi-chan on a Kageyama rant again?” Atsumu asks, lips pulling into a sly grin, patting Sakusa on the shoulder. “Just ignore him, Omi-kun, ‘kay?”

“Hey!” It’s not like I actually rant about him. (...Probably.)

“Hm?” Atsumu raises a brow in my direction and waves me off. “Yeah yeah, that's nice Chibi. Have fun with your boyfriend.”

“We're not boyfriends!” I cry.

“Sure, sure.” Atsumu ruffles my hair. “Whatever you say.” He pulls Sakusa away, and now I’m all alone, still zinging with energy from the game and with nowhere to put it. Really, there’s only one thing to do. 

I hop off the stool, stomp my way to the edge of the bar, and drop into the booth that Tobio’s sitting at with my back against the wall, so I don’t have to face him straight on. “Stop staring at me.” 

He freezes like I’ve pointed a spotlight on his crime scene. “I wasn’t staring.”

I snort. Yeah, right. Does he think he’s duping me? 

I tap my fingers against my thigh. Just sitting by him, the energy from before is shivering between us, like a thrum in my bones that makes it impossible to hold still. 

“So...” I can hear the tight discomfort in his voice.

I risk a glance in his direction. “So,” I say. It’s not my job to make chatting easy for him. 

Tobio straightens up. “You’re back.” He’s gotten so big now, even taller and more filled out than when I last saw him. But he's still a little kid in a big body who can’t find his way through a conversation. 

“I'm back,” I say. 

“I wasn't sure how you’d feel once you got used to beach matches.” From the corner of my eye, I catch his nostrils pinching like he’s holding his breath. "Iwazumi said, Oikawa ended up wanting to stay in Argentina.” 

“Yeah, well, you've never known a thing about how I feel.”

He winces.

I shouldn’t be watching so closely, but I am, and I hate how much I don’t want him like this—without any of his usual pride. That part of my head better shut up real fast. I jut my chin out. “You could’ve called.”

Surprise flickers across his face. “Would you have picked up?”

I look away and slump against the booth wall because, I think, if he had tried to talk to me, I probably would have given in—but he didn’t, and I don’t want him to know how weak I am. My head is swimming. I downed too many shots, too fast.

“Drink some water.” He shoves a glass across the table at me, and a quarter of it sloshes out over my elbow. 

I don’t dare touch it.

Tobio does things like this—forcing me to drink water when I'm dehydrated, slapping my back to slow me down when I eat too fast, refusing to toss me balls when I’m burnt out so I'll rest. I used to think all his backward caregiving was some hint at a _below the surface Tobio_ I never got to see. But if he were masking that much, I’d have seen proof by now.

I cast my head around the room like I’m searching for someone. “Where's your sister?”

It’s a dumb distraction. She never came to our old games, and I didn’t see her in the stands today, but something in me can’t help but try to rile Tobio up. I’m hungry for one of our fights. 

I think he ignores my question, or at least I don’t hear his answer over the noise of the bar. The lights are pulsing in beat with the music, and it’s way too much. I cover my eyes.

“Drink!” Tobio shouts, shoving the glass of water closer to me, rattling its ice cubes, and almost knocking it off the table’s edge.

“Don't tell me what to do.”

Satisfaction twists in my belly at his snarl. Something is clicking into place. Up till now, it’s been a lot. Flying back to Japan. Trying out for the V-League. Waiting to play against him again... It all happened like _zip!_ But sitting here, together, I feel like I'm home.

I turn into the booth all the way so I can really look at him. It hurts how much he’s changed. How big he’s grown isn’t the only change either. He’s even more serious and starker than I remember—black lashes against white cheekbones—so pretty it should count as a foul. Do the Adlers never go outside?

“How have you been?” I can tell something is bothering him. 

Tobio has his arms folded out in front of him, and he’s squeezing his fingers around his wrist bone. He shrugs. “Fine.”

“Just fine?” I press. “You played in the Olympics, you know?”

“It was volleyball—so it was good.” He shrugs again, drawing his arms in tighter to his chest. “You should have been there.”

As if I hadn’t wanted it more than breathing? As if I hadn’t given it everything? I ball my fists in my lap. “I'll be there for the next one.”

“I know,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth—more confident than I can take. Almost… proud.

Something threatens to give inside me. Since when did it matter if he was proud of me? _Is_ he proud? The question teeters at the end of my tongue. He won't lie if I just ask straight out. Tobio is honest as a slammed door on a pinky toe.

Actually, I change my mind. I can't ask. I don't know what I was steering to gain from talking to him at all. I’ve already gotten the best volleyball match of my life, and he’s as good as promised to step up for more. Trying to get anything else out of him isn't gonna do me any good.

I don’t look at him as I mutter an excuse and slip out of the booth, stumbling to the exit. I’ve had enough homecoming to last me the rest of the year.

*

I don’t realize Tobio has followed me out of the bar until I hear his footsteps, then his arms are wrapping around me, hands gripping at my middle. “Wait, will you?”

I grip him back on instinct, brushing my thumb over his knuckles. 

I’d recognize his hands anywhere. Tobio’s a setter. He knows how to touch me. Nothing like the wet-behind-the-ears guys in Brazil I’d share a beer with, then a little more. How am I supposed to forget Tobio’s hands when they know my body like he’s cracked me open and read all my secrets?

A car horn going off in the street echoes the thrill rising up my spine as he tightens his arms at my waist and curves himself around me.

“You can't just grab people, stupid,” I say, still thumbing at the soft skin between his knuckles. I’m not ready to let go just yet.

"This isn't grabbing. I'm just holding you.”

It’s too _gentle_ is what it is. It makes me almost hope... 

"Besides, you’ve grabbed me at least a hundred times.”

“Used to.” My hands are moving on their own, tracing circles over the center of his wrist, over the bones. “Things are different now.”

“Course they're different.” He drops his head to my shoulder, neck firm to mine. I feel his throat vibrate from the roughness of his voice when he says, “You're finally back.”

“You already said that earlier.” I’m struggling to keep my breathing even as his lips skim against my skin. 

“I can’t help it,” he whispers, palms falling open to my touch, willing. “I missed you. Playing is better with you.”

My toes scrunch in my sneakers. We’re just standing here, him hugging me from behind, surrounded on three sides, an alleyway that goes nowhere and a train yowling over the track above us. I could back him up against the concrete siding of the bar. No one would see. Kami, I want to. I could take anything I want from him right now. Except for his heart... 

“You’re staying now, right?” he asks.

“For a while, yeah.” I touch the calluses at the tips of our fingers together. “But I have to go wherever there’s a chance for me. You know that.”

Tobio groans a long strained vibration against my collarbone.

I take back what I said before about things clicking into place. I don’t recognize this new and improved V-League Tobio. He’s never been so much like putty, letting his feelings out into the open, feeding the humming current in my body.

"You were amazing today,” he whispers. “That one receive was basically perfect.”

“It _was_ perfect,” I say with my best impression of confidence, throat clicking as I swallow. 

_You've been here before. This doesn't end well,_ I tell myself as I pull away to whirl around.

Tobio lifts his head and nudges back in close. There are only a few millimeters between us. “I want to toss to you.” 

My breath hitches without my permission. Wetness stings the tops of my cheeks. _He wants to toss to me_. I won’t have to beg for a chance to hit his sets. This is what I've waited for so long. 

His eyes are flashing with an unspoken challenge, and the heat of his breath itches the skin on my teeth as he edges closer. “Come back to my apartment.”

I nod hazily. Sounds like a good deal—tosses for touching, all the things I want. Wait, no, no, no. I shove him back by his chest, breathing heavily. "Are you crazy?" Raising a shaking hand to scrub my face. "We’re shit for each other.”

He frowns, just standing there like he doesn't know what to do with his arms. “You never used to curse.”

Of all things to come out of his mouth. “What are you worried I've had bad influences?” A strained laugh escapes me. “You curse all the time hypocrite-yama.”

He glares. “We’re not shit for each other.”

I shake my head because no way, nuh-uh, I'm not doing this. He can’t trick me with sudden crumbs of praise. “Well, _you’re_ shit for _me_.” I pull at the roots of my hair. “You can’t just sneak back into my life in the middle of the night like a crook.”

His mouth falls open. I’m not prepared for the way his cheeks pinch up, and his face crumples. It stabs at me with all its pointed lines. I’m not supposed to win like this, killing the flash in his eyes. He’s my rival, not some final boss I’ve got to beat to submission. I need him to be okay. We have a world to conquer together. But I don't have it in me to make him okay when I feel like this.

I back away, heart tripping in my chest, and run. 

I don’t slow down even as I leap the stairs to the subway, almost landing on a dead rat before making it onto the train. But after two stops of twitching in my seat with the jumping pulse under my skin, I dart off the subway car out into the station and decide on second thought to run the rest of the way to Yachi’s apartment.

She’s been letting me crash on her hand-me-down futon since I don’t have my own place yet.

*

“You’re back earlier than I thought you’d be,” Yachi says from where she’s curled up on the couch with her laptop, probably up late working on some design project that she’s not getting paid for yet. 

“Yeah, well...” I'm panting from the workout as I throw myself over the other end of the couch and bury my overheated face into its mushy fabric. “Yama-yama tried to do his thing again, and I ended up running for it.” 

I can practically feel her eyes widen. “That bad, huh?”

I grunt. All I can think about is Tobio’s crushed face right before I got out of there. “It was so strange. He got all serious and said this stuff… _emotional_ stuff.” 

_He missed me… I make volleyball better…_ What’s it mean? I’ve already quit him. I don’t want to get my hopes up.

Yachi hums. “You always said emotional stuff was his biggest problem. Maybe this is a _good thing_ ,” she suggests gently.

"No way," I say, thinking of Tobio facing me like we were in the middle of a match I didn’t tell him about. Then, "Maybe." It's a _scary thing_ for sure.

*

It’s so late it’s early when Yachi shuts her laptop and heads to bed. I’m still too jittery with drinks and nerves and leftover energy from my V-League match to fall asleep, so when the front door buzzes, I jolt up from the couch and shuffle through the apartment to open it myself. Yachi deserves her rest.

I don’t expect to find Tobio in sweatpants and a baggy white t-shirt on the other side of the door. 

“Um.” He looks down at his feet. Behind him, the sky is a pale purple that’s tinging his skin bluish, and the bit of his eyes that I can see almost seems to glow.

“Yachi texted me that you were here,” he mumbles. "I'll go if you want me to."

I should say, go. I really should, but I don't.

Stepping out, I shut the door to the apartment. (If Tobio and I end up fighting again, I don’t want to wake Yachi accidentally.)

Outside the air is sticky-warm, but still humid enough to give me chills. Yellow Ginko leaves litter the second-floor landing; all split down the middle now that it’s the end of their season. “Why did you come here?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I just wanted to talk. There’s some stuff I should say.”

I guess we really do have to have this out. “So talk,” I say. 

He pinches his elbow, still not making eye contact with me. "I missed playing with you. Missed you."

I stiffen. I can't hear this again.

“All this time you've been away, I’ve been waiting for you.” He looks up, searching my face. “I haven’t–I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

Anger teases up my spine. “That’s not fair.”

“I know, okay?” He squeezes his eyes shut, lips clamping together in a zigzag. I can see him struggling to say more. “I get that I messed up really bad. I wasn’t a good boyfriend. I didn’t listen or take your feelings into account, and I never got you good presents. I should’ve trusted you more. I should’ve told you about my family, and shared my—you know—emotions and everything.”

I waver back against the door, and he follows, drawn like I had him tied by a string. The world feels suddenly slanted, and I’d think it was from all the tequila earlier if I hadn’t been sobering for hours. “I can't believe you remember all that...” all the stuff I told him in high school when we broke up.

He scowls, pressing our foreheads together. “How was I supposed to forget the reasons you didn’t want to be with me?”

What’s happening right now? Have I gotten through to him? Or maybe did I a long time ago, and he couldn’t… till now? My heart is overcrowding past capacity. My mind is rocking with the unreality of all this. Steady! I tell myself. There are things I still don't know. “Do you–” I clear my throat. “That stuff matters to you?”

He bumps his forehead into mine, and the warmth of his flush heats my skin. “ _You_ matter to me.” Then, quieter, “I want to do better.”

“Where were all these feelings back in high school? Or like, the fifty times I dumped you? You never cared before.”

“You’re a dumbass,” he whines against my forehead.

My whole body strings up at the sound.

“The first time we broke up, I had to skip class to call Miwa because I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was having a heart attack. Eventually, I figured this was just how it was gonna be with you.” His lips rest against my skin, pressed together, and I bury the urge to grab him down by the collar and kiss them open. 

“I thought,” he says slowly. “I was lucky cause I still got you some of the time.”

My temper sags. Those breakups hurt just as much for me. I have no idea what I would've done back then if I’d known I wasn’t the only one. I’m not sure how any of this is happening, but Tobio isn’t waiting for a response, just bringing his hand up to cup my face, thumbing the papery skin under my eyes with a frown that practically blasts his disapproval. 

“I know. I haven't been sleeping.” 

“Take better care of yourself,” he says, voice tight.

I tug him in closer by the band of his sweatpants. I'd rather he took care of me.

He squirms, smushing his lips against the top of my head. He’s muffled when he croaks out, “I love you.”

 _He loves me…_ This dumpster wildfire of a boyfriend has somehow gotten away with loving me and not saying it. 

I want to nuzzle him and breathe in how familiar he smells—clothes right outta the wash, and that _him_ smell I’ve never been able to put my finger on. I want to let myself have this. Can I?

“What does this mean?”

I swallow. “I don’t know.”

He stares down at where my hand is gripping his waistband like I’ve cornered him as my prey. “I think I’m still gonna mess up, though. I don't know how to do things right. I need you to tell me what you want.”

I nod. He definitely will. Tobio is an idiot. But I always knew that much. And, unlike him, I'm good at talking about what I'm feeling. “You have to tell me how you feel about me.” I force him back at his belly so that I can look him in the eye. “Lots! Okay?”

Tobio bites hard at the bottom of his lip and swallows thickly. “It’s a deal then, I’ll tell you I l-love you, and you won’t break up with me in a few days?”

My skin tingles all over. I am never going to get enough of hearing that. “Deal,” I say, reaching up, standing on my toes to jab our noses together. “I love you, too, dummy.”

His mouth wobbles into what I could call a smile if there wasn’t so much doubt weighing into it. "You called me a crook before."

I grab him by the jaw and nip at his chin. "So?” I smirk. I’ll bite that expression off his mouth if he doesn’t shape up. “Steal me." 

Kissing Tobio is a shock of lips and teeth as he folds into me so fast I forget to close my eyes. The ends of his lashes poke at me where he's smashing his cheeks into mine. I bring my other hand up to hold him where I can reach him—to keep him. This is the way it’s supposed to be with us—budding up against each other, rough edges that somehow fit. 

Don’t ask me why. I can’t tell you. 

He’s clinging to me, and I’m clinging back, as the pads of his fingers sizzle up under my shirt. Hopefully, Yachi won’t worry when I’m not in the futon in the morning. But it’s hard to think about that when Tobio is mapping all the most sensitive points along my spine.

All I know is he tastes of Chapstick and toothpaste and home—and I’m never letting go again.

FIN

You might like my Kagehina soulmate fic[ They Need to Keep Touching in This One ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669084)

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